ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: There is limited evidence available regarding patient satisfaction and quality of life assessment in patients with extraoral maxillofacial prostheses. OBJECTIVES: This systematic review aims to understand the impact of extraoral implant retained prosthesis in improving the quality of life in patients with extraoral maxillofacial defects/abnormalities. METHODS: A comprehensive search was performed of nine electronic databases up to August 2022, which yielded three articles that satisfied the inclusion criteria. The study characteristics and findings were extracted, and the included studies were assessed for quality. RESULTS: Three cohort studies were selected. Despite the lack of uniformity in the quality of life instruments, there was a general trend in improvement in the quality of life for patients with implant retained extraoral prostheses. The studies were also deemed to be of high quality on assessment. CONCLUSION: Given the limitations of this systematic review, there exists limited evidence indicating that implant prostheses may enhance the quality of life for individuals with extraoral maxillofacial defects or abnormalities.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The biophysical properties of microwave electromagnetic radiation suggest that it may be an alternative to radiofrequency (RF) energy for ablation of arrhythmias resistant to treatment using RF ablation. METHODS AND RESULTS: The aim of this study was to characterize lesions produced using simple element designs in a blood superfused ovine tissue model to simulate endocardial ablation. The effect of tissue bath flow, duration of microwave exposure, and changes in forward power on lesion size were examined using a modified monopole element. Lesion size increased with increasing duration of exposure and increasing forward power (P < 0.05). Lesion depth was 0.7+/-0.7 mm after 30 seconds and 11.5+/-1.9 mm after 360 seconds. Lesion depths at 61, 71, and 80 W were 6.4+/-3.7, 8.9+/-2.0, and 11.9+/-1.2 mm, respectively. Altering flow within the bath from 3 to 5 L/min did not significantly change lesion size. CONCLUSION: Simple element designs can be used to produce a range of lesions from very small sizes to lesions that are transmural in the ventricle. The temperature half-time for microwave ablation is far greater than that of RF ablation. Like RF lesions, the lesions produced by microwave ablation have greater width than depth. Deep penetration of lesions into the ventricular myocardium can only be achieved with these elements by producing lesions of perhaps unnecessarily large volume.
